In The Complete Norwegian Folktales and Legends of Asbjørnsen & Moe, I elected to retain the name Askeladden as the hero of “every other one of our folktales,” after considerable deliberation. Previous English translations have called him “Cinderellus” (Chambers), “Boots” (Dasent), “Ashpattle” (Brækstad), or “the Ash Lad” (Nunnally, among others). In the Norwegian first edition of the first volume of the folktales, the collectors standardised his name as Askepot (subsequently used in Norwegian for the character known in English as Cinderella), but as Jørgen Moe mentions, this is a purely Danish term, known but little used in Norway, which the collectors employed in deference to the “common aversion to Norwegian names” in writing.
The various Norwegian collectors heard the most common protagonist called a number of bynames: Askefi(i)s, Askepot, Askeladd, Oskelad(d), and Oskelabb. In each case, the word used is a compound of two roots. The first of these is common to all the names: aske-/ oske- means “ash(es).” Each name takes a second root, either -fi(i)s, which denotes blowing or farting (explaining why Asbjørnsen and Moe demurred from using “Askefis” as the hero’s name), or -lad(d)/ -labb/ -pot, any of which indicates something to to with the feet.1 Tyrihans is another name that Jørgen Moe mentions, “which means Hans who concerns himself with the fatwood” (used to light fires or as lanterns). The semantic domain is the same; whether he is called Askeladden or Tyrihans, he hangs about the hearth, playing with the fire instead of pulling his weight on the farm.
A number of ideas concerning the significance of the Askeladden character have been suggested over the years. Due to his status as the family’s underdog, who, despite the contempt of the rest of the family, and thanks to his tenacity, quick-wittedness, and heart, emerges victorious at the end of the folktale, Norwegians were quick to embrace the figure as an embodiment of the national spirit. This view ignores the inconvenient fact that Norway won its independence, not by exercising the qualities we see in the Askeladden figure, but as an unintended side effect of European Realpolitik in the wake of the Napoleonic wars.
Other ideas include the notion of Askeladden as a parallel to heroic figures from the Old Norse sagas.2 The descriptions of some of the heroes of the sagas are quite similar to those of Askeladden of the folktales. Such descriptions are not seen in heroic poems, where the heroic figure is rather nurtured as such. Knut Liestøl assumes therefore that Askeladden of the folktales was used for a literary model in the sagas. This would give a very early date for the figure of Askeladden, however, and the development may well have been in the opposite direction – Askeladden developing from the sagas, rather than the sagas coming from the folktales. In either case, it does not explain the name.
Because Askeladden has been so highly regarded throughout the years, Norwegians have lost sight of the inconvenient fact that the byname is an insult. Well, it was at one time.
Regine Normann, in her two-volume collection of legends, demonstrates nicely how, as late as the 1920s, playing in the hearth was considered an oddity, associated with indolence. The byname was a taunt:
Our eldest brother died of a throat infection when he was nine years old. Father was so afraid that things would go the same way with Mekkel and with me that we were barely allowed beneath the open sky in the mildest of bad weather. Do you remember, Mekkel, how excited we were when we once in a while got to go out and play with the other children, and how they made fun of us and called us stoveblowers? And it didn’t help to ask to be allowed to wear less; our parents were unwavering.
– Regine Normann. “The Mislaid Breadknife” in Legends from Arctic Norway (my emphasis).
Previously: Today You Learned (#1): Not all Asbjørnsen & Moe is Asbjørnsen & Moe.
